Peter Dutton assures voters over the Coalition’s tight relationship with China

Peter Dutton has claimed Australia’s relationship with China would be ‘much stronger’ should the opposition win the next election.

Peter Dutton at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: AFP

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Peter Dutton has claimed Australia’s relationship with China will be “much stronger” should the opposition win the next election, despite the many trade sanctions enforced by Beijing during the Morrison government in response to the Coalition’s hawkish language against its biggest trading partner.

The icy relationship between the Coalition government and Beijing – caused in part by Morrison ministers calling for an investigation into the origins of Covid-19 – prompted massive swings from within Chinese commun­ities away from the Liberals in 2022.

But the Opposition Leader on Tuesday declared that should the Coalition win the election, the relationship with China would be better than it was under Anthony Albanese.

“In government, we were able to sign the free-trade agreement with China and they are obviously our most important trading partner,” he said in Perth. “We want there to be mutual respect in the relationship, which is incredibly important, and I had that conversation with Premier Li (Qiang) when he was in Canberra.”

Coalition sources told The Australian last year that the party hoped to win back the Chinese ­diaspora – which swung against the Coalition at double the rate of the national average in 2022 – through a tough stance on crime and support for entrepreneurship.

Despite Liberal MPs having been previously discouraged from using Chinese apps like WeChat, many of those with a high rate of Chinese voters are rejoining such platforms.

Average swings against the Liberals of nearly 7 per cent were recorded in the 15 seats with the highest proportion of people with Chinese ancestry, compared to its national average of just 3.7 per cent on a two-party-preferred basis.

Following the federal redistribution last year, the seat with the largest Chinese diaspora will be Menzies, in Victoria, currently held by the Liberals.

Mr Dutton said the reason his party wanted to build a good relationship with Beijing was that it would be good for Australia and “good for economic advancement in China, where millions of people have left poverty and come into the middle class in China because of exports of iron ore and other critical minerals from Western Australia”.

“I want to grow this mining industry,” he said.

“The government has a plan which is going to crush the mining industry here in WA.”

Despite purposefully attending numerous engagements with the Chinese community last year, Mr Dutton still faces a lack of trust from the diaspora, according to sources such as Australia’s biggest Chinese-language digital media outlet Sydney Today, which found 65 per cent of its readers “definitely do not trust Dutton” because of the Coalition’s ­“aggressive” stance on China at the last election.

Anthony Albanese talks to Chinese Premier Li Qiang in Perth. Picture: NewsWire / Richard Wainwright

While Scott Morrison struggled to meet with Xi Jinping or even speak over the phone with him while in office, Mr Albanese met with his Chinese counterpart within six months of taking the top job. The Prime Minister has also met with other leaders, including Premier Li, who visited Australia last year.

Assistant Trade Minister Tim Ayres said Mr Dutton’s claim that Australia’s relationship with China would improve rather than suffer under the Coalition was “extraordinary”.

“It’s hard to imagine anything Peter Dutton could constructively contribute to Australia’s relationships in the region,” he said.

“It’s an extraordinary statement … the evidence of the last 2½ years makes it clear that that is an absolute falsehood and at best a projection of a sense of entitlement.”

While many of the sanctions put in place by Beijing under the Morrison government have now been lifted – including wine and lobster – some critics have raised concern that the Albanese government is being too soft on Beijing in exchange for the trade benefits that a more positive relationship with the economic superpower would bring.